New functions of a library management system

1 Introduction

The book management system is a common information management system on the market today. It is a system composed of personnel, computers, etc., which can collect, transmit, process, save, maintain and use management information.

With the rapid changes in information dissemination methods and the massive increase in electronic books, the systems used to handle offline library management in the past have been unable to meet current management needs, and electronic information management modules must be added to management.

In order to understand the operation mechanism of the library management system, we investigated the mature library management systems on the market, such as the official websites of major libraries. During the investigation, we summarized the common functions of the library management system and proposed new functions based on this.

2 A brief view of existing library management system

2.1 System users

According to our observation of the existing library management system, there are generally two user roles in the system, they are borrower and administrator. In addition, we also need an external role---database, used to store data information in the system.

2.2 Functional analysis of existing systems

After experiencing the functions of the existing systems, we found that although each system has many differences in details, the basic functions are very similar. Here summarized the functions that are commonly used in several systems and the basic functions which a library management system should have.

System administrator level

• Handle book information: add, delete, and update book information.
• Handle borrower account information: add, delete, modify borrower account information.
• Query system data information: query book information, query borrower information.

Database management level

• Manage data information of the system: book information, borrower information, etc.

Borrower level

• Query book information
• Borrow books and return books.

General system structure model

2.3 Functional Requirements of a existing system

Different users (system administrator, database administrator, borrower) should be able to login in, login out. For different users, they have following requirements.

System administrator

• Handle book information: add, delete, update book information.
• Handle borrower account information: add, delete, modify borrower account information.
• Query system data information: query book information, query borrower information.
• Send emails to borrowers whose item are about to due.

Database administrator

• Management the data information of the system: book information, borrower information, etc.

Borrower

• Search for book information.
• Borrow books.
• Return books.
• Book a book if the book has been borrowed which make sure the borrower can get this book first once it is returned.
• Request the book if book is in another library.
• Recommend the library to buy the book borrower wants.
• Search the subjects by subject title, subject number.

3 Proposed functions

In this library system, we proposed two functions: position-related search and indoor-navigation.

The system runs on the mobile platform.

 

position-related search

 

3.2 Requirement Analysis

3.2.1 Indoor-navigation

With the improvement of the electronic degree of books, general books can obtain electronic resources on the Internet, which leads to the purpose of people who use libraries mainly to access academic materials. Such books usually have complex classification methods, and there are many similar book names. In order to find these books in the library conveniently and quickly, we propose a library indoor navigation function to provide navigation services for everyone who comes to find books, so that they can find the books they need more conveniently and quickly.

2.2 Position-related search

Sometimes the book user search has copies in multiple libraries in the city. People tend to rent the book in the nearest library. If the search results are ordered by the distance from libraries to the user, it will bring convenience to users. Some users prefer filtering the results according to some restrictions on distance. For example, users can filter by distance, so they can see whether there are libraries that meet the distance requirement that can rent the book.

3.3 Requirements definition

3.3.1 Indoor-navigation

The system must provide tools to help users reach the shelf where the book they are looking for.

3.3.2 position-related search

The system can access the GPS service if user is using a mobile devices. At the same time, users can set his location by himself if they find the GPS location is not accurate or they just want to change the location.

Using location-related search, users can get an ordered list of copies that they can find from the nearest library to the furthest library. If the location filter is set, the location requirements will be feed into the search engine.

After searching, users can set filters on the districts the libraries are in and distance from users’ location. The search results will be updated and displayed to the user.

3.4 Non-functional requirements

Usability

• Accessible in most of the countries.
• Provide detailed help files.
• A good interface that most of the visitors find it easy to use.
• A color-scale that is friendly to color blindness people.
• All the pages can be displayed properly on most of the devices (laptop, phone and tablet).
• Provide two system languages: Chinese and English

Reliability

• Fast recovery from errors.
• Record error information into log files.
• Robust from intrusions and hackers.

Performance

• Able to deal with 10000+ visitors’ requests at the same time
• Search time less than 10 seconds.
• Page response time less than 3 seconds.

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